What did Socrates contribute to philosophy?

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Socrates contributed to philosophy by creating what is known as the fundamentals of Western philosophy. He invented the teaching practice of pedagogy, the Socratic method and contributed to the fields of ethics, epistemology and logic.

The Socratic method is described in Plato's "Socratic Dialogues." It is a method that works to clarify a person's own beliefs, as well as evaluate their worth, while clarifying the concepts of good and justice. He believed that a person could find the answer to any problem by first breaking it down into a series of questions and then finding the answer in the responses to those questions.

Socrates was very concerned with achieving practical results for society and he focused on an ethical system of dogma rather than a theological doctrine. He believed human choice was always motivated by an inner desire for happiness. He also believed that ultimate wisdom would come to a person who knew themselves because the greater the person's ability to reason, then the better the person's ability to make choices that would bring about great happiness.

The details of Socrates' methods and life come to historians in the form of his associates and his students. There is no proof that Socrates left behind any written works, making it difficult to ascertain his whole ideology. The details that historians do have come from Plato, Aristophanes and Xenophon.

Related Questions

Scholars do not know the exact nature of Socrates' beliefs because he did not leave behind any writings. According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, nearly all available knowledge about Socrates comes from the writings of Plato, Xenophon and Aristophanes, all of whose reliability is questionable.

Confucius was a Chinese philosopher born in 551 BC who developed the philosophy that later acted as a basis for Chinese government, and he introduced ideas that people live by today. Confucius spent time in exile, conveying his political beliefs to various courts of states in central and northeast China.

In philosophy, realism is the belief that reality lies outside of the human mind; it is the focus on things that can be observed as well as things that exist independently of what the human mind believes to be true. An example of realism in philosophy is that a tree will exist in nature whether a human is able to recognize the tree.